July 6, 2018 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 5A
City agencies partner to improve Goodman Park
S
erving as the chief executive of a
public agency means that no two
days are ever the same. I love my
job and the excitement that it brings
with the opportunities of each day.
Recently I received a call from
a friend who also works as a local
contractor. This individual builds
and remodels homes throughout the
State of Oregon but has done many
properties in Clatsop County over the
past few years.
As soon as we connected he start-
ed praising the Sunset Empire Park
and Recreation District for our inno-
vating work and dedicated staff. I was
taken aback. While I get out-of-the-
blue phone calls that offer feedback
on the district often, this call was
pleasantly optimistic and positive!
As our conversation continued
however, I quickly realized that
his praise was misdirected. He had
recently built a home in the proximity
of Goodman Park and he was calling
to offer compliments and appreciation
for the renovation of that wonderful
space.
The line between Sunset Park and
Recreation District and the city of
Seaside Parks is well defined, at least
to those directly involved in those
SKY BOX
SKYLER ARCHIBALD
two government agencies, and both
entities operate within their roles to
provide facilities and services that
enhance the quality of life for our
community.
The city owns and maintains
a plethora of parks, including the
Seaside Promenade, Cartwright Park,
the Mill Ponds and Goodman Park.
Goodman Park, situated on the corner
of 12th Avenue and Necanicum Drive
on a little less than two-third of an
acre, is the northernmost park in
Seaside and serves the residents in the
adjoining communities.
Over the past few years the park
has received some focused attention
by the city of Seaside Public Works
Department. First, the restroom and
parking lot were updated, providing
more accommodations and a safer
experience for park-goers, as well as
the many locals and guests alike who
use that area for crabbing off the 12th
Avenue bridge.
SKYLER ARCHIBALD
Renovation at Goodman Park.
Next city of Seaside invested
heavily in completely remaking the
park and that project has largely tak-
en place over the past few months.
That remodel included replacing
the play structures, adding curb-
ing, planting new grass and adding
irrigation. The park now meets ADA
standards and is a beautiful transfor-
mation for the residents of that area.
The city also relocated the Rota-
ry Peace Pole which is a monument
dedicated to “Peace prevailing on
earth” and includes inclusive lan-
guage. The Peace Pole at Goodman
Park was erected and dedicated in
the Spring of 2017.
Economic research from our na-
tionwide membership group Nation-
al Recreation and Park Association
indicates that homes and properties
near parklands have higher values
than those farther away. Further-
more, 85 percent of those relocating
seek high quality park and recreation
amenities when they are choosing a
place to live.
No wonder that so many individ-
uals and families are trying hard to
relocate to the North Coast of Ore-
gon, what with our moderate climate
and abundant park and recreation
amenities.
After speaking with my friend, I
encouraged him to contact the city of
Seaside and direct his praise, which
he may or may not have done. Often-
times, public agencies don’t get the
deserved accolades for their vision
and effort but in this case that praise
was completely warranted, albeit
slightly misplaced!
I’m thankful for the city of Sea-
side, the Public Works Department
and this wonderful community to
reside in. As summer is fully here
with us, I encourage all to get outside
and play at Goodman Park or one of
the many other wonderful recreation
spots along the North Coast.
Train your dog to become a savvy travel companion
S
ummertime, and the getting lost
is easy. It’s especially true if
you’re a tourist. It’s also true if
you’re training challenged, and you
happen to be a dog.
Imagine you’re a dog who loves
to travel and whose parents take
you along on their vacations. It’s
your first trip to Cannon Beach! So
many new dogs to sniff! So many
new people! And a lot of shops that
keep interrupting your walks. That’s
fine because you get plenty of
attention while you wait. You even
get to jump on some friendly people
when your parents aren’t looking.
Then your leash breaks, setting you
free to peek into windows, follow
strangers, even cross the street! It’s
very exciting at first, but then scam-
per turns to wander and you realize
you’re lost. You might have found
your way home by scent in your
town, but this town is a tangle of
unfamiliar smells. You have nothing
to go on.
Let’s save this dog. How would
you do it?
Some readers will be thinking
prevention — e.g., dog staying with
parents rather than out of sight and
CANINE CORNER
RAIN JORDAN
& DAHLIA
jumping on strangers may have pre-
vented the leash break and escape.
That’s one good option, especially
in a dog-friendly town like Can-
non Beach. It’s wise to have other
options as well; not all places are
so dog-friendly. Double leashing is
another option some may choose.
Others might argue that having
trained for calm behavior might
have prevented the leash break.
Because some dogs will escape, it’s
important to know how to get them
back, by which I mean not only
how to find them — once gone,
there are professionals who should
be consulted for the important task
of tracking lost pets — but how to
get them to come back to you. In
the story above, if the dog’s parents
had been right there when the leash
broke, would the dog have stopped
and returned to the parents when
they called?
Recall help is a common request
of people hiring dog trainers.
Some dog owners report that dogs
who used to “come” now ignore
such instructions. Indeed, it is not
surprising for dogs to ignore cues
to which they once responded, and
there’s a very logical reason: They
have learned that responding does
not pay. Usually, the reasons for a
dog’s diminished recall response are
1. Dog’s name and/or cue
overuse (also known as “nagging”),
combined with
2. Punishing or ignoring the
dog’s response, and
3. Lack of the dog’s preferred
primary reinforcer on a sufficient
reinforcement schedule.
Example: Owner cues unrespon-
sive dog as follows. “Rover, come!
Come, Rover! Rover?! ROVER,
COME! COME- HERE-RIGHT-
NOW! ROVER!” If the dog does
finally come and is greeted with
scolding or further punishment,
or if the dog is simply ignored (a
form of punishment), the dog is
not being positively reinforced for
having recalled as instructed. Since
increasing and maintaining desired
behavior on cue is achieved by
high rates of positive reinforcement
using the dog’s preferred reinforcer
(usually this is small pieces of novel
food items but may be something
else) while avoiding anything
aversive to the dog, the combination
of nagging, punishing, and with-
holding sufficient positive reinforce-
ment can quickly diminish a dog’s
responsiveness.
To save the lost dog of our story,
then — to prevent the dog from
being lost — we would teach the
dog’s parents how to positively
reinforce, train, and cue behavior.
We would ensure that they safely
practice in increasingly distracting
environments until the dog responds
to the cue in any environment. That
dog would have excellent recall,
that dog’s parents would ensure that
recall was maintained via positive
reinforcement protocols, and that
dog would possess a high likelihood
of immediately stopping upon hear-
ing his name and returning to his
parents upon hearing his recall cue.
There are those who will say that
if you “let the dog get away with
it”— ignoring repeated demands to
come, calling the dog’s name mul-
tiple times — then you are teaching
the dog to ignore you, that you must
be more “firm” with the dog. Those
people are only fractionally correct:
What teaches ignoring is nagging.
This is an irony that the most pro-
ficient tune-out masters of our own
species can confirm.
When it comes to effective
animal training, you do not need
the baggage packed up in “firm”;
you’ll have a cleaner conscience
and a happier, more cooperative
dog (who isn’t at risk of developing
aversives-related aggression) via
positive reinforcement and cueing.
Being “firm” and other euphemisms
are often excuses to hurt, force, in-
timidate, scare, or startle a dog into
attention rather than taking the time
and patience to train with kindness,
which you can do while saying the
cue just once — installing a more
reliable behavior at the same time.
Contact me if you’d like to learn
how!
Rain Jordan of Elevate Dog
Training & Behavior can be
reached at ElevateDogTraining@
gmail.com.
Authors Haupt, Quinn offer literary insights at Beach Books
Authors add
personal
experiences to
their characters’
voices in two
new fiction
novels
By Rebecca Herren
Seaside Signal
Novelists Jennifer Haupt
and Anna Quinn love combin-
ing book tours, and their joint
readings featured at Beach
Books on June 22 was one of
many they have collaborated
with over the years.
Quinn, who is the author of
“The Night Child,” and Haupt
who penned “In The Shadow
of 10,000 Hills,” first met at a
Pacific Northwest Booksell-
ers event. They hit it off and
have been tour buddies ever
since. “It was simpatico,”
Haupt said.
Their book tours have
taken them from coast to
coast, together and individu-
ally. Whenever possible they
combine tours, readings and
workshops. When schedules
align, their husbands accom-
pany them for a weekend va-
cation.
Quinn’s strength
within
Anna Quinn owns the
Writers’ Workshoppe and
Imprint Bookstore in Port
Townsend, Washington. She
is a published poet and essay-
ist and has led writing work-
shops for more than 26 years.
“The Night Child” is a
story of resilience. The novel
explores the impact of trau-
matic childhood experiences
and the line between the past
and the present. Its main voice
is Nora, a high school English
teacher, who, as a child, told
REBECCA HERREN
Authors Anna Quinn, standing, and Jennifer Haupt, seated, talk
about what influences inspired the characters in their newest
novels at the Lunch in the Loft author series at Beach Books.
herself stories as a way to
survive. It wasn’t until some-
thing disrupts her belief that
Nora finds out the story she’d
been telling herself might not
be the true one.
Suffering her own child-
hood trauma, Quinn learned
to tell herself stories; writing
herself out of old stories and
into new ones. Quinn also
found an escape in music and
learned to play the accordion.
“Music changes you vis-
cerally,” she said, and looks
for ways to recreate rhythm
and passion in her writings.
But it wasn’t until she dis-
covered fiction that her whole
world opened up.
“It was my mother who
took me to the library every
week until I could drive then
brought us home with piles of
books. She taught me how to
write very early on,” Quinn
said. “The one huge gift she
gave me was to say, ‘learn to
write yourself into the stories
you want to be in.’”
Books shaped her life
through observation and at a
safe distance, Quinn noted,
like Fern who learns to stand
up to authority in “Charlotte’s
Web,” or Scout who learns
to navigate through the adult
world in “To Kill a Mock-
ingbird,” and like Bone, who
finds her inner strength in
“Bastard of Carolina.”
Like the characters in these
stories, Quinn, too, eventually
found the language and her
voice.
Haupt finds
connection
“In The Shadow of 10,000
Hills” is set against the back-
drop of a country grieving 12
‘The one huge gift
(my mother) gave
me was to say,
“learn to write
yourself into
the stories you
want to be in.” ’
‘I came back
from Rwanda
wanting to tell
these stories
but wanting to
tell these stories
in fiction.’
Anna Quinn
Jennifer Haupt
years post Rwandan genocide.
It follows the intertwining
stories of women who discov-
er the connections between
forgiveness and grief.
Jennifer Haupt is a
well-traveled journalist and
essayist. She was a journalist
for 20 years and never thought
she could write a novel, say-
ing, “It didn’t seem like some-
thing I could make a living
at; something that was in the
cards for me.”
She specialized in writ-
ing about women who dealt
with their own depression
and grief by starting nonprof-
its for children and women
around the world. She didn’t
know how to start a nonprofit
or how this would help heal
one’s grief, but she kept ask-
ing. The answers she received
were always the same: by
helping people discover their
voice and helping them deal
with their grief was healing
for the women who started
the nonprofits. “I was just
fascinated with that,” Haupt
said.
She traveled to Rwanda
in 2006, more than a decade
after the Rwandan genocide.
Her journey into the rural
provinces to interview geno-
cide survivors, aid workers
and people who were starting
nonprofits gave her a sense of
connection, sharing similar
trauma.
After a visit to the camps
at Dachau, Haupt understood
how deep their connection
was. In Rwanda, it was the
decimation of the Tutsi people
at the hands of the Hutu gov-
ernment. In Dachau, it was the
murder of Haupt’s relatives at
the hands of the Nazi regime
during the Holocaust.
She also felt connected
through her own dealings
with depression and the unre-
solved grief of her sister dying
when Haupt was young.
“There was a bridge of
compassion I felt between
me and the people whose sto-
ries and experiences that, of
course, I couldn’t compare
my experiences with, but
I found this whole country
was still grieving 12 years
after the genocide and it was
very much under the surface.
I came back from Rwanda
wanting to tell these stories
but wanting to tell these sto-
ries in fiction.”
The novel is about a
white, middle-class, priv-
ileged woman who bonds
with Rwandans and creates
a family who is intercultural
and intergenerational. It’s the
story of five people who are
black, white, American and
Rwandan, and come togeth-
er in post genocide Rwanda
when the reconciliation trials
are just beginning in 2000.
SUB-BIDS
REQUESTED
Seaside School
District-New
Middle/High
Schools
Seaside, Oregon
Bid Package: #2
Concrete Foundation,
Underslab Utilities,
Waterproofing and Elevators
(Includes Structural Concrete
Foundation, Underslab Elec/
Tele/AV, Underslab Plumbing,
Waterproofing & Elevators)
Bids Due:
July 18 th 2:00pm
Bid Documents:
www.hoffmancorp.com/subcontractors
805 SW Broadway, Suite 2100
Portland, OR 97205
Phone (503) 221-8811
Bid Fax (503) 221-8888
BIDS@hoffmancorp.com
Hoffman is an equal opportunity employer
and requests sub-bids from all interested
firms including disadvantaged, minority,
women, disabled veterans and emerging
small-business enterprises
OR CCB#28417/LIC HOFFMCC164NC